Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Checking out the Czech Award Winners

The Czech Extraleague and the Czech Hockey Association gave out their various awards last night. Let's have a final look at the Extraleague's best for this season...

It was a big night for Tomas Kaberle as he took home the regular season MVP, Best Defenseman, and Top Player (as voted by the fans) awards.

Ales Hemsky surprised me by beating out Jan Lasak for the Playoff MVP award. Lasak didn't go home empty-handed, fortunately, as he won the absolute Golden Helmet award for his spectacular save against Liberec's Lukas Pabiska.

The one atrocity was the Best Goaltender Award that was given to Milan Hnilicka as awarded by the newspaper 'Pravo'. Hnilicka finished about 10th in every meaningful goaltending statistic, and was nowhere near the best goaltender in the league. This would be like giving the NHL's Vezina Trophy to Dan Cloutier.

Edmonton Oilers fan-favourite Jiri Dopita was also presented with a 16 year-old bottle of whiskey as thanks for helping Pardubice win their first title in 16 years.